My copy of THIS IS NOT A DRILL ~ AN extinction rebellion HANDBOOK has just arrived. Here’s an excerpt for you from ‘The Civil Resistance Model’ by Roger Hallam.

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The key lesson about all structural political change is this: disruption works. Without disruption there is no economic cost, and without economic cost the guys running this world don’t really care. That’s why labour strikes are so effective against companies and why closing down a capital city is so effective against governments. You have to hit them where it hurts: in their pockets. That’s just the way it is.

The central dynamic here is the ‘dilemma’ action. When you create a dilemma for the authorities you open up a space of opportunity which was not there previously. Within that space you can get noticed, speak truth to power, negotiate, and more.

The authorities now have a serious dilemma: let people party on the streets, or opt for repression.

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The lesson then is you don’t wait until everyone is ready, because you’ll be waiting for ever. You just need to go out and do it.

Rebellions are created because some people have had enough. They are all over it and don’t care if they’re successful or not. It’s sublime madness. It ‘s the only thing that will save us now.

I have proposed commencing rebellion to the Climate Crisis on 31 October 2019. A discussion of that proposal follows.

Unfortunately this blog is very one-directional. I get very little feedback to anything that I publish. It is however widely-read and can provide a lead. At the very least please consider what I am proposing.

The big problem with the date I proposed is that it coincides with the UK’s possible no-deal Brexit. Rebellion in UK could be misrepresented as opposition to Brexit by disgruntled anti-Brexiteers. I proposed this date on the basis that I do not expect Brexit to happen and it’s Halloween. Any action now in UK could be misrepresented as opposition to Brexit.

Analysis and proposed tactics needs only to be adequate and sufficient. I suggest that we need to rebel to show that climate destruction is no longer tolerated, we really are all in this together and that we have a responsibility to young people, the Planet (including nature) and future generations.

Traditional politics has proved to be totally incapable of dealing with the climate crisis. Indeed, it is even responsible for causing climate destruction. Fundamental changes are needed to protect our Planet.

I am not associated with Extinction Rebellion although they have my support. I am impressed by their media representatives and pink boats.

Strategy

Planning and preparation is key. I suggest autonomous action targetting travel (particularly private transport) and being as effective and productive as possible which means trying to avoid arrest.

Bicycles and small motorcycles are good transport. Traffic lights can be disabled, roads can be blocked using large vehicles e.g. buses, stop vehicle and then disable. Planning and preparation – simple tools needed and practice.

We must acknowledge that we do not have the situation under control
and that we don’t have all the solutions yet. Unless those solutions
mean that we simply stop doing certain things.

We admit that we are losing this battle.

We have to acknowledge that the older generations have failed. All political movements in their present form have failed.

But homo sapiens have not yet failed.

Yes, we are failing, but there is still time to turn everything
around. We can still fix this. We still have everything in our own
hands.

But unless we recognise the overall failures of our current systems, we most probably don’t stand a chance.

We are facing a disaster of unspoken sufferings for enormous amounts
of people. And now is not the time for speaking politely or focusing on
what we can or cannot say. Now is the time to speak clearly.

Solving the climate crisis is the greatest and most complex challenge
that homo sapiens have ever faced. The main solution, however, is so
simple that even a small child can understand it. We have to stop our
emissions of greenhouse gases.

And either we do that, or we don’t.

You say that nothing in life is black or white.

But that is a lie. A very dangerous lie.

Either we prevent a 1.5 degree of warming, or we don’t.

Either we avoid setting off that irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, or we don’t.

Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don’t.

That is as black or white as it gets.

Because there are no grey areas when it comes to survival.

Now we all have a choice.

We can create transformational action that will safeguard the living conditions for future generations.

Or we can continue with our business as usual and fail.

That is up to you and me.

And yes, we need a system change rather than individual change. But you cannot have one without the other.

If you look through history, all the big changes in society have been
started by people at the grassroots level. People like you and me.

So, I ask you to please wake up and make the changes required
possible. To do your best is no longer good enough. We must all do the
seemingly impossible.

Today, we use about 100 million barrels of oil every single day.
There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that
oil in the ground.

So, we can no longer save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed.

Everything needs to change. And it has to start today.

So, everyone out there, it is now time for civil disobedience. It is time to rebel.

Google Camp 2019 contributed in no small way to destroying the planet inviting rich, planet-destroying cnuts to destroy the planet more to discuss the climate crisis …

They could have instead of inviting rich climate-destroying criminals to Sicily in their private jets and ridiculous ‘super-yachts’ simply spent their money giving away really slinky bikes to persuade youngsters away from driving cars(?)

Google could also support Greta Thunberg …

I suggest to Google that they don’t have any more of these climate-destroying events.

We also have to make clear to these rich climate-destroying criminals that private jets, super-yachts and space tourism is not tolerated.

[ed: Cities and ports have got to start refusing entry to superyachts]

Donald Trump has attacked a majority-black district represented by an African-American lawmaker as a ‘disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess’.

Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the president of
‘racist attacks’ after a stream of tweets targeting congress critic
representative Elijah Cummings.

Mr Trump lashed out at the powerful House Oversight Committee
chairman, claiming his Baltimore-area district in Maryland, US, is
‘considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United
States’.

Ms Pelosi was among Democrats to slam the tweets, saying Mr Cummings
was a ‘champion in the Congress and the country for civil rights and
economic justice, a beloved leader in Baltimore, and deeply valued
colleague’.

She added: ‘We all reject racist attacks against him and support his steadfast leadership.’

President Donald Trump took aim at the radical left-wing
movement Antifa on Twitter Saturday, writing that the organization was
being considered for dedication as a terror organization.

Trump waved off the group as a collection of “gutless Radical Left Wack Jobs” who had enacted violence on “only non-fighters.”

“Consideration is being given to declaring ANTIFA, the gutless Radical Left Wack Jobs who go around hitting (only non-fighters) people over the heads with baseball bats, a major Organization of Terror (along with MS-13 & others),” Trump wrote. “Would make it easier for police to do their job!”

We can’t escape the fact that we all exist under the all-encompassing system known as Capitalism. Capitalism is about concentrating power in and enriching a tiny minority at the expense of the vast majority. Capitalism involves huge inequalities so that the vast majority of people are denied any opportunity to realise their potential.

The climate crisis – the state we’re in – has developed under Capitalism. Capitalism is concerned only with creating and accumulating private and corporate wealth. Capitalism has no concern for the environment or the climate crisis it has created. Big oil knew fifty years ago that it was destroying the planet and did it regardless. There were groups and projects promoting ‘alternative’, renewable energy in the 1970s.

There is a huge problem that many people cannot even imagine a system other than Capitalism. It is regarded as the natural order because it is so pervasive. Business as usual continues despite the climate crisis because people are so set in their ways/thinking.

There is the further huge problem that we are constrained by Capitalism. Capitalism is creating wealth by destroying the planet through burning fossil fuels. This is the reason for calls for system change.

Real wealth is about having good health, friends and relationships, about leading a good life, caring for others and enjoying a healthy, natural environment.

We should realise that Capitalism is not the natural order and that is is instead permitted, allowed [11.55am tolerated] to destroy the planet.

The scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming is
likely to have passed 99%, according to the lead author of the most
authoritative study on the subject, and could rise further after
separate research that clears up some of the remaining doubts.

Three studies published in Nature and Nature Geoscience use extensive
historical data to show there has never been a period in the last 2,000
years when temperature changes have been as fast and extensive as in
recent decades.

It had previously been thought that similarly dramatic peaks and troughs might have occurred in the past, including in periods dubbed the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Climate Anomaly. But the three studies use reconstructions based on 700 proxy records of temperature change, such as trees, ice and sediment, from all continents that indicate none of these shifts took place in more than half the globe at any one time.

…

“This paper should finally stop climate change deniers claiming that the recent observed coherent global warming is part of a natural climate cycle. This paper shows the truly stark difference between regional and localised changes in climate of the past and the truly global effect of anthropogenic greenhouse emissions,” said Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College London.

No apology is due for being anti-Capitalist, anti-Fascist and anti-Racist. That’s how it should be.

I hold Capitalism responsible for destroying the planet because Capitalism is concerned only with making profit.

I regard Anti-Fascism as subsuming Anti-Racism.

12.47p.m. I am writing in a personal capacity and should not be regarded as any way proscriptive. I am proud to be anti-Capitalist, anti-Fascist and anti-Racist.

I expect team Corbyn to do well in any elections. Corbyn has demonstrated that there is a need for traditional Socialist representation. Combined with real action on the climate crisis and an opposition tearing itself apart, Corbyn and the Labour party are the winners.

John Reid yesterday accused the government’s anti-terror critics of putting national security at risk by their failure to recognise the serious nature of the threat facing Britain. “They just don’t get it,” he said.

The home secretary yesterday gave the thinktank Demos his strongest hint yet that a new round of anti-terror legislation is on the way this autumn by warning that traditional civil liberty arguments were not so much wrong as just made for another age.

“Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse and abuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms in the modern world,” he said.

Mr Reid said Britain was now facing “probably the most sustained period of severe threat since the end of the second world war” and that the country was facing a new breed of ruthless “unconstrained international terrorists”.

The European human rights convention had been drawn up 50 years ago to protect against fascist states but now the threat came from “fascist individuals” unconstrained by such conventions, agreements or standards. Everyone across the political, media, judicial and public spectrum needed to understand the depth and magnitude of the threat.

The majority of the public understood its seriousness but there were those who “just don’t get it” …

Record temperatures across much of the world over the past two weeks could make July the hottest month ever measured on Earth, according to climate scientists.

The past fortnight has seen freak heat in the Canadian Arctic, crippling droughts in Chennai and Harare and forest fires that forced thousands of holidaymakers to abandon campsites in southern France and prompted the air force in Indonesia to fly cloud-busting missions in the hope of inducing rain.

If the trends of the first half of this month continue, it will beat the previous record from July 2017 by about 0.025C, according to calculations by Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, and others.

The scientists stressed that this outcome is uncertain because conditions could change in the second half of the month, but it underscores a broader pattern of steadily rising temperatures caused by increasing emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants, deforestation, cars, planes and other sources.

New findings on ocean warming: 5 questions answered

Editor’s note: A new study by scientists in the United States, China, France and Germany estimates that the world’s oceans have absorbed much more excess heat from human-induced climate change than researchers had estimated up to now. This finding suggests that global warming may be even more advanced than previously thought. Atmospheric scientist Scott Denning explains how the new report arrived at this result and what it implies about the pace of climate change.

1. How do scientists measure ocean temperature and estimate how climate change is affecting it?

They use thermometers attached to thousands of bobbing robots floating at controlled depths throughout the oceans. This system of “Argo floats” was launched in the year 2000 and there are now about 4,000 of the floating instruments.

About once every 10 days, they cycle from the surface to a depth of 6,500 feet, then bob back up to the surface to transmit their data by satellite. Each year this network collects about 100,000 measurements of the three-dimensional temperature distribution of the oceans.

The Argo measurements show that about 93 percent of the global warming caused by burning carbon for fuel is felt as changes in ocean temperature, while only a very small amount of this warming occurs in the air.

The new study finds that since 1991, the oceans have warmed about 60 percent faster than the average rate of warming estimated by studies summarized by the IPCC, which are based on data from Argo floats. This is a big deal.

Most of the difference comes from the earliest part of this period, before there were enough Argo floats in the oceans to properly represent the three-dimensional distribution of global water temperatures. The new data are complete all the way back to 1991, but the Argo data were really sparse until the mid-2000s.

The implication of faster ocean warming is that the effect of carbon dioxide on global warming is greater than we’d thought. We already knew that adding CO2 to the air was warming the world very rapidly. And the IPCC just warned in a special report that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels – a target that would avert many extreme impacts on humans and ecosystems – would require quickly reducing and eventually eliminating coal, oil and gas from the world energy supply. This study doesn’t change any of that, but it means we will need to eliminate fossil fuels even faster.

To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the IPCC warns that greenhouse gas emissions would need to be drastically reduced over approximately the next decade.IPCC, CC BY-ND

3. What did these researchers do differently to arrive at a higher number?

They have measured tiny changes since 1991 in the concentrations of a few gases in the air – oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide – with incredibly high precision. This is really hard to do, because the changes are extremely small compared to the large amounts already in the air.

Some of these gases from the air dissolve into the oceans. The water’s temperature dictates how much it can absorb. As water warms, the amount of a gas that can dissolve in it decreases – that’s why a soda or beer left open on the kitchen table goes flat. That same temperature dependence allowed the scientists to calculate total changes in global ocean heat content from 1991 to now, just using very precise measurements of the air itself.

4. If this study is accurate, what does it suggest we should expect in the way of major climate change impacts in the coming decades?

This study did not address climate impacts, but they are already well known. As the world warms, more water vapor evaporates from both oceans and land. This means that when big storms develop, there’s more water vapor in the air for them to “work with,” which will produce more extreme rain and snow and resulting winds.

What this study suggests is that the climate is more sensitive to greenhouse gases than we previously thought. This means that in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, emissions will need to be cut faster and deeper.

5. How will we know whether these findings hold up?

There are other groups making precise gas measurements, and many of them have data going back to the 1990s. Others will repeat the analyses made by these authors and check their results. There will also be careful work to reconcile the increased warming rate of the oceans with the Argo temperature data, the surface air temperature record, atmospheric data from balloons and measurements made from satellites. The real world must be consistent with all of the observations taken together, not just a subset.

This study very cleverly used data from the composition of the air itself going back nearly 30 years. We didn’t have Argo floats back then, but air samples are still available that can be analyzed decades later. Using a longer record of warming is much better for estimating the rate, because it’s less sensitive to year-to-year variations than a shorter record.

These scientists have given us a new and independent way to assess the sensitivity of long-term global warming to changes in atmospheric CO2 levels. I expect the findings will indeed hold up, and that we will be hearing a lot more about this new method in the future.

London will have a similar climate in three decades’ time to that of Barcelona today, according to research – but if that seems enticing, a warning: the change could be accompanied by severe drought.

Madrid will feel like present-day Marrakech by 2050, and Stockholm like Budapest, according to a report on the likely impacts of the climate crisis. Around the world, cities that are currently in temperate or cold zones in the northern hemisphere will resemble cities more than 600 miles (1,000km) closer to the equator, with damaging effects on health and infrastructure.

Among other analogues, the study suggests Moscow will resemble Sofia, Seattle will feel like San Francisco and New York will be comparable to Virginia Beach. The researchers have created an interactive map showing hundreds of cities and their 2050 counterparts.

Water shortages will affect scores of cities now in temperate climates as a result of the global heating, which is forecast to be by as much as 3.5C in European cities in summer and 4.7C in winter.